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Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-904141
Iran's Regime Pays Them to Shoot. What Happens When the Money Runs Out?
(Jerusalem Post) Sogand Fakheri - Inside today's Islamic Republic, the regime can no longer be certain whom it controls, whom it merely pays, and whom it should fear. A man who served within Iran's security apparatus told me why many remain at their posts. "Most of them stay because they receive money. If it were not for the money, they would have turned their weapons toward the IRGC a long time ago." What happens when the regime can no longer afford to pay for loyalty? My source also drew a sharp distinction between pressure on the regime and damage to the country. He argued that attacks on power stations, factories and other civilian infrastructure weaken the Iranian people rather than the IRGC. In his view, military pressure, if used, should concentrate on the institutions and facilities responsible for repression rather than the infrastructure ordinary Iranians need to survive. The question for potential defectors is not necessarily whether they oppose the regime. It is whether they can survive opposing it. Disobedience can mean imprisonment, torture, execution or retaliation against relatives. A salary is only one part of the system. Fear is the other. The Islamic Republic does not require every soldier or policeman to believe in it. It only requires enough of them to obey at the decisive moment. In January, enough of them did. Isolated defections should not be romanticized as evidence that the security apparatus has collapsed. The decisive question in Iran's next uprising will be what happens when the person ordered to shoot looks at the people standing in front of him and decides which side offers him a future. The author is an Iran analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.